If you use Microsoft Excel, you may have seen the error message “Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action.” This can happen when Excel waits for another program to finish a task before it can complete its own.

One possible cause of this issue is hidden links in your Excel file. These links may not be visible through the regular Excel tools, like the “Edit Links” option in the “Data” tab. They can be buried in charts or other objects copied from another file.

You can download an Excel add-in tool called “Inquire” from Microsoft to identify and remove hidden links. This tool allows you to scan your entire spreadsheet and see all the hidden links. You can then remove them to fix the issue.

To download Inquire:

1. Go to the Microsoft website and search for “Inquire add-in for Excel.”
2. Once you download and install it, you can access it through the “Add-ins” tab in Excel.

You can run the “Workbook Analysis” function from there to scan for hidden links. Following these steps, you can fix the “Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action” error in your Excel file.

If you encounter the “Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an ole action” error message, there are several ways to fix it. Here are some possible solutions:

1. Restart your system: The first thing to try is restarting your computer and seeing if that resolves the issue.
2. Turn on the “Ignore other applications that use DDE” feature: Sometimes, the DDE protocol can cause conflicts with other applications, leading to the OLE Action Error.  To fix this, you can enable the “Ignore other applications that use DDE” feature in Excel by going to:
   • File
   • Options
   •  Advanced
   • General
   • Select the appropriate option
3. Repair or reinstall Microsoft Office: If the issue persists, try repairing or reinstalling your Microsoft Office applications to fix any corrupted files or settings.
4. Disable conflicting add-ins: Conflicting add-ins can also cause the OLE Action Error. You can try disabling them to see if that resolves the issue.
5. Check for updates: Make sure your Microsoft Office applications are current. Sometimes, updates can fix bugs or compatibility issues that may be causing the OLE Action Error.

Disable add-ins

1. Open your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, click the File menu, and select Options.
2. From there, select Add-ins, select Excel Add-ins and click the Go button.
3. Uncheck all the boxes that you see and click OK.
4. Once you have disabled your add-ins, restart your Excel document to see if the error message has disappeared.

Disable Compatibility Mode

1. Right-click on your Microsoft Excel and select the Properties option
2. An Excel options dialog box will appear
3. Click the Compatibility mode button
4. Uncheck the option “Run this program in compatibility mode“.